US government sues Montana county over drinking water system

HELENA, Mont. (AP) - The U.S. government is asking a judge to force Beaverhead County to comply with state and federal drinking water standards after finding excessive contamination and numerous failures to monitor and report on a small Montana community’s water system over nine years.

The Department of Justice sued Wednesday after finding the county’s water and sewer district committed numerous violations dating to 2009 and then disobeyed multiple Environmental Protection Agency orders to fix them.

The violations include levels of arsenic and radioactive contaminants that exceeded the limits set by Montana multiple times. Despite those excessive levels, the district failed to monitor for those and other contaminants and failed to make the required disclosures to state regulators and the public, the lawsuit said.

The groundwater system serves fewer than 50 people in the small southwestern Montana community of Jackson, located near the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest about 110 miles southwest of Butte.

Beaverhead County attorney Jed Fitch did not immediately return a call for comment Friday.

The EPA issued orders in 2009, 2013 and 2014 for the county to fix the problems, but each one was violated, prompting the lawsuit for a court order, Justice Department attorneys wrote.

High levels of arsenic were found in the Jackson drinking water system as far back as 2005, when Montana prepared to adopt new water contamination limits. The county received a three-year exemption to comply, and only started racking up violations when the exemption expired in 2009.

The EPA lists 16 violations in its lawsuit that include not only excessive arsenic and radionuclides, but the county water district’s failure to monitor for several other contaminants - asbestos, pesticides and coliform bacteria. The district also failed to submit required reports on contamination and monitoring to state regulators and its customers, the lawsuit said.